Mountain Echo

Mountain Echo Excerpts

The Mountain Echo was the first newspaper in Laurel County. It began in Barbourville and included information from many counties in the southeastern Kentucky mountains, including Clay, Knox, Whitley, Jackson, Rockcastle, Pulaski, Letcher, and Laurel. Around 1875 the paper moved to London. Eventually the news pertained mostly to Laurel County.

Correspondents from communities throughout the county sent news about crimes, weddings, illnesses, deaths, visitors, and other community happenings that they considered important.

By 1907 the paper was known as the London Sentinel. In 1919 it became the Sentinel Echo. Some issues were lost.

Transcribed and indexed

The excerpts were transcribed from microfilm and fully indexed by name. Issues that had not been transcribed were available on microfilm at the Society and at the Laurel County Public Library when the original page was published.

The Society offered this excerpt from the October 3, 1873 issue: “C. C. Jackson and family left Laurel county, on the 30th September, for Sherman, Texas.”

Years represented

The old catalog named original or supplemental excerpt volumes for 1873–1879, 1880–1881, 1882–1883, 1884–1885, 1886–1887, 1888–1890, and annual or short-span volumes from 1891 through 1905 and for 1907. It distinguished one original volume from several supplemental volumes and specifically noted that there was no newspaper in 1906. Prices, postage, ordering directions, and the former address are omitted.

The year-by-year sequence shows how the Society treated excerpts as a continuing transcription project rather than a single anthology. The separate supplemental volumes also indicate that additional material was incorporated without pretending the surviving newspaper run was complete.

Because the newspaper carried crime, illness, death, and family news, its excerpts should be handled with context and restraint. The description and sample are historical newspaper material, not current information, and should not invite commercial use of sensitive family and memorial details.